Centerfield

The paradox is one of perceptions, not realities.

Not really a paradox. For one, 56% of black Americans (who earn significantly less money than whites) live in the South, and thus in red-states. That will surely affect the stats here.

Slightly off-topic, but what an annoying PDF. They shouldn't force the reader to click through each and every bullet point.

To get back on topic, when I talk to my "liberal" friends, they often express ideas that are fundamentally conservative. I wonder if their current distaste for the Bush administration has affected their willingness to align themselves with positions that are conservative?

Aren't paradoxes matters of perception by definition? This one is like getting the popular vote but losing the electoral college.

I think what Tully is talking about is that the rough data is trying to suggest that people aren't voting in their own interest. But when you look at the actual data and opinion polls etc, people have reasons that feel very valid to them for voting as they do.

I think a paradox has to do with more than perception. I didn't find the dictionary especially helpful...the one that seems on point is "an assertion that is essentially self-contradictory, although based on valid deduction from acceptable premises.

One of the biggest problems here is the obscuring effects of averages. The conclusions one can draw from a single variable here are very limited. Voting is, if anything, a multi-variate process, no?

I'm suggesting that the strongest indicator of Democratic voting is urban population density. Big City living! Thus, the large coastal urban areas tend blue. But that's also where living costs (and thus aggregate wage levels) are much higher, which gives the appearance of a higher standard of living that may not actually be present.

That blue states in general have higher aggregate income levels does not mean they are "richer" in terms of individual standards of living. It means it costs more to live in them. A salary of $60-80K is solidly middle-class for a family of four in Kansas (avg house price $130K). In New York City or San Francisco (avg house price $500K+) it's subsistence. Once you adjust income levels for price levels (especially housing) you see that the strongest "income" associations with Democratic voting are actually a combination of population density and poverty.

There are some other "urban" skews to the demographics as well. EX: People with children and job mobility tend to leave big cities for smaller ones, and for the suburbs. They also tend to vote Republican. Young single professionals tend to move to large cities. There's jobs there, and more social opportunities. And young single professionals tend to vote Dem. Etc.

If you try to break up the voting demographics by single simplistic indicators, you are certain to create "paradoxes" because you're trying to read too much of a complex picture in only one dimension. As WHQ points out, such paradoxes are perception problems, not actual paradoxes.

I think that "paradox" is that there is any substantive difference between the national parties at all. They are both completely in the pockets of the large organizations that fund their campaigns and the only real difference tends to be support for issues that don’t matter or have no real impact such as school prayer or the assault weapons ban to name two issues from each side of the isle that are classic exercises in stupidity.